They also found difficulty in understanding why the police will want to ban a medium that it (the police) are absent on.

All over the world, police departments are using social media to enhance their relationship with the public they serve.

As social media has become an integral part of people’s daily lives, law enforcement agencies globally have realized the need to get onto these platforms to serve as an extra layer of policing, give traffic updates, making reporting crime easier and giving out police public information.

For instance, the Metropolitan Police (London’s police) has 33 Twitter accounts; one for each of the 32 boroughs it serves and an overall account. They also Instagram, Flickr and YouTube accounts.

This is also the case in Boston;

CAPTURED!!! The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won. Suspect in custody.

The fears about social media being used as an avenue for the spreading of false information during the elections and could potentially leading to violence are legitimate. However, the police and the Electoral Commission could use this same avenue to quell false information.

In 2014, the Electoral Commission of South Africa used social media, its own app and the internet to inform the public about the official results from the elections.

Want election results at your fingertips? Download the IEC voter app, see http://t.co/gqO3eAxKTN for more info.

So while the IGP has only said they were considering it and that a definite decision had not been made, it is important that they stop right at the consideration stage and start getting on social media themselves to improve their relationship and communication between the men in black and the public.